I NOTICED that the first sentence of your BBC Radio Gloucestershire interview on January 3, 2011 referred to the Forest of Dean "jumping the gun" – an interesting turn of phrase.

Perhaps if you pointed "the gun" away from us we would no longer need to "jump" it. We will of course continue to "jump the gun" on this issue for just as long as it takes.

As I have said to you in a previous letter, just about everyone else in the UK has a right to this area, except anyone to do with the government, no matter what colour. Would you therefore stop saying at every opportunity that this is a "political issue". It most certainly is not!

It is a shame that the word "passionate" only applies to cash in your case, whereas it applies more aptly to landscape, wildlife and people in my world.

All governments have a "watershed" and I would urge you to retreat now with caution, because the Forest of Dean may suddenly and completely "out of the blue" take on the appearance of "Waterloo" in the case of yourself personally and the government you confidently represent. Five years could easily become five minutes.

Please would you let me know the dates and times you will be at your surgery in Cinderford during 2011 as I would dearly like to talk to you face to face about this issue?

– Doug Eaton, Perch Drive, Mile End, Coleford.